Writing: character arcs

Well, so far this month, writing has been going great guns! I suspect it follows from having done a lot of planning on the structure of the book and getting the bare bones of the plot sorted out. I've been thinking about this book, on and off, for over a year, and already had a heap of notes and a mind-map of the plot sorted. I then spent a good week or more nailing down the key scenes that I wanted, before I wrote one word of any scenes.

It also helps that I know the characters really well - this will be third book in the trilogy - so I haven't had to do so much on character development, though of course, there's some, on new characters or ones who have come to the fore a little more. I did spend quite a bit of time on their character arcs though, again, before writing a word of any of the scenes.

There's a great blog post on the different types of character arc, and also how these fit with general story plans: The 3 Types of Character Arc: Change, Growth or Fall. I also produced a summary sheet for planning out how each main character reacts to the different plot points:
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